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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25933600">My Andromeda</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilydaleXF/pseuds/LilydaleXF'>LilydaleXF</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The X-Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, MSR, Season/Series 11, fluff adjacent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:22:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>911</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25933600</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilydaleXF/pseuds/LilydaleXF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully drive around with nothing to do but talk and be sweet nerds.</p>
<p>Set during season 11 sometime after "My Struggle III" and before "Rm9sbG93ZXJz" when Mulder and Scully are dating? Married? Living together? Or not? It's all very confusing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fox Mulder/Dana Scully</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My Andromeda</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Invida/pseuds/Circe%20Invidiosa">Circe Invidiosa</a> for the encouragement and helping to make this story better.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"What shows did you watch as a kid?"</p>
<p>Mulder glances over at Scully with a raised brow. They'd been driving for how long without saying anything? And this is the first thing she says?</p>
<p>He looks back at the road and answers honestly, "I didn't watch many shows. The ones I really wanted to see I wasn't allowed to watch. Except after excessive begging."</p>
<p>"And on nights you could successfully sneak into the TV room after your parents fell asleep." It's a statement, not a question.</p>
<p>"You know me so well, Scully."</p>
<p>"I will never underestimate the grave draw and importance of <i>The Twilight Zone</i> again," she says with a smirk. "Or your persistence. Although," she says with a tilt of her head followed by a nearly inaudible click of her tongue, "your persistence in tracking down things you care about has never really been in question."</p>
<p>His mouth curls slightly upward too as he dips his head down and flicks his eyes briefly in her direction. She's not looking at him. The way they see each other often doesn't involve visualization.</p>
<p>The only sound in the car returns to being the hum of tires on pavement. Minutes pass before he catches movement out of the corner of his eye just before her fingers pull his right hand off the wheel. She leads their entwined hands to rest on the center console.</p>
<p>"So what should we watch tonight? One of the old DVDs?" she asks.</p>
<p>Aha! That answers his unspoken question of where exactly he was driving them. He had hoped for one stop at the country house instead of having to first drop off Scully, but it was hard to know her expectations for the evening. Even when he thinks he knows the truth about anything he's talking about with her, a part of him still expects her to question him, challenge him, make him explain. They will never entirely stop their brand of intellectual seduction. Today he'd already made up his mind and hadn't asked her out loud on purpose.</p>
<p>He knew she would not say she didn't want to go to their house.</p>
<p>"What if we just sit out on the porch tonight?"</p>
<p>"To stare at the parked car and nothingness? No, Mulder."</p>
<p>"I'd get out the star map. We could look for Cetus."</p>
<p>She murmurs a vaguely disapproving "hmm."</p>
<p>"In Greek mythology," he says, "Andromeda was going to be sacrificed to Cetus as a punishment for arrogance because her mother bragged about her beauty, offending the gods. But then Perseus slayed Cetus, saving Andromeda. He married her, made her a queen."</p>
<p>"That is a deft retelling of the myth, but it does not make the porch more interesting."</p>
<p>"Come on, Scully. Cetus is a whale. We could look for a starlit white whale."</p>
<p>"Don't try to <i>Moby Dick</i> bait me, Mulder. Cetus is a sea monster."</p>
<p>Her vaguely disapproving "hmm" resonated now in words. Words that made it nearly impossible for him to not make a dick joke, but that would surely result in his immediate loss of any say in what they did that evening. Probably including whether it was a "they" at all.</p>
<p>"Well, it depends how--"</p>
<p>"No. It's a sea monster. And I am not hunting sea monsters with you."</p>
<p>"Well, you did--"</p>
<p>"My sea monster hunting days are over." She sighs. "I can't believe I ever had sea monster hunting days."</p>
<p>He smiles. He believes.</p>
<p>"If we'd ever found a sea monster, I'd have slayed it for you."</p>
<p>"And made me a queen?"</p>
<p>"Something like that," he says as he squeezes her hand.</p>
<p>"There's a whole section of the sky that's called 'The Sea,'" she tells him. "Pisces is there. And Aquarius. Cetus must be there too."</p>
<p>"Only way to find out is to get out on the porch with the star map."</p>
<p>Ignoring him, she continues, "My father told me that. About 'The Sea' in the sky. When I was little I'd get upset when he was leaving for days or weeks to go to sea, so he told me that even though he was off with the Navy I could find him at sea by looking at the sky. I had no idea what he meant. I kept trying to find waves or something in the sky."</p>
<p>She chuckles at the memory. He swears the sound makes the car feel instantly warmer. He keeps that unscientific thought to himself as he rubs his thumb languidly along hers.</p>
<p>"Did it help you miss him less?"</p>
<p>"Yes. It gave me something to do, something I thought we were both doing and seeing. But I still missed him a lot."</p>
<p>"When I was little I wished my dad would go away more often."</p>
<p>"So you could watch more TV?"</p>
<p>"Not entirely. But yeah. Everything was quieter at home with the TV on." He knows his childhood was not ideal.</p>
<p>She doesn't do or say anything for a few beats of time, and he's afraid he made her uncomfortable. Then he hears, "We can sit outside tonight if you want, Mulder."</p>
<p>"What?" This was a surprisingly fast about-face after the sea monster business.</p>
<p>"The porch. Outside. Those ugly blue chairs. We can be quiet together out there."</p>
<p>He raises their joined hands and brushes a quick kiss across her knuckles. "My Andromeda, we will search the sky."</p>
<p>"It's not so bad here on the ground."</p>
<p>Not tonight it's not. They drive home, sunset sky aglow.</p>
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